The Yatil Mountains
The Obsidian Citadel
Mordenkainen, just shy of his 100th birthday, sat alone in his study. He still considered his mind to be sharp, but his eyesight was now nearly gone. Luckily, he had developed a new spell about a decade ago that created a magical voice that read to him. He could choose the voice and it was a melodic female voice, an elven voice - ironically once belonging to an elf he knew he had now outlived.
The tome being read to him sounded enchanting in that voice, but the words of the book were troubling him now. This work, A Treatise on the Nature of Abjuration by Iggwilv, had played an unsung role in Oerik’s history. When then-Canon Hazen of Veluna, before he became Pope Hazen, used the Crook of Rao to instigate the Flight of Fiends in the year 586, archmages like Mordenkainen saw this as not the ending but the beginning of sealing off the entire continent from dangerous manifestations from the outer planes. Studying this book had been instrumental in Mordenkainen’s contributions to The First Great Barrier Spell, ritual magic so powerful that it had taken Mordenkainen, Basiliv, Leomund, and Nystul to anchor the spell. The spell changed the very way magical gates would work anywhere on Oerik, so that beings native to Oerth could open gates, but beings gated in from the outer planes could not in turn open gates of their own.
But now, as Mordenkainen listened to the book being read to him, he realized these were not the same words he had read before. Was there an error in the casting of his spell? Some flaw in the spell’s creation? Because if these words were true, then…
“A spell could be made to trap us all in…” Mordenkainen mused out loud.
It was just then that the meteor swarm struck the citadel. Fiery missiles fell hard and fast from the sky, crushing through the citadel’s defenses like they were no more than paper, and killed Mordenkainen.
Luckily, Mordenkainen was prepared for that.
Long ago, he had wished for contingencies in place in the event he was killed. Time rewound three minutes. Mordenkainen was still alive, with an idea about what had killed him.
The first thing he did was teleport to the highest roof of the citadel. He watched for signs of his attacker, but seeing no one, he cast Dispel Magic, to prevent the Meteor Swarm spell. But the meteors still came. One of them struck him directly, incinerating him on the spot.
Time rewound again, but this time only by two minutes. Mordenkainen was still on the roof of the citadel, as if he had just arrived there. Someone just cast a spell at me that even I couldn’t dispel, Mordenkainen thought. Terrified, he cast the most powerful monster summoning spell he possessed. Four manticores appeared in the air above him -- right in the path of the meteor swarm. Two of the meteors vaporized the manticores, but veered off course, including the one that had incinerated Mordenkainen. The other two meteors crashed into the citadel, including one into the tower a few floors below where Mordenkainen stood. The tower crumbled and the floor broke up under his feet, but Mordenkainen cast a Fly spell before he tumbled into open space. He soared away from the fiery inferno that was his citadel and down to the courtyard below.
Once he alighted on the ground, Mordenkainen was feeling pretty good about how he’d escaped death. Twice. But then his right leg went weak and then numb. The numbness was suddenly all over the right side of his body, through his arm, and even half his face. He stumbled, unable to catch himself, and fell to the obsidian flagstones in the courtyard. He was confused, unsure what spell could have caused this affliction. What he had no way of knowing was that he had just suffered what physicians on Keith Winton’s Earth would have called a stroke. Not one of his magical defenses was prepared for it, so they did not stop it.
Mordenkainen opened his eyes. He felt groggy, like someone who had slept too long. It took him a few moments to focus on his surroundings. It looked like the master bedroom of the Obsidian Citadel. He was in his own room, in his own bed. Someone was sitting next to the bed, a fat, old man with a white beard as long as Mordenkainen’s own. The man was dressed all in blue.
“Good heavens…” Mordenkainen said with a voice that surprised him with its weakness. “Is that you, Tenser?”
The fat, old man nodded and smiled. “It is indeed. It’s good to see you awake.”
“It’s good to see you too, old friend. Is it really you? Not a bad clone…?”
Tenser’s smile melted back down to a grin. “No, it’s really me. I just let myself go in my old age.”
“Best time for it…” Mordenkainen tried to focus his thoughts. He should be remembering something. What was it? …Oh! “Tenser, the citadel was…under attack…”
“I know. The attack stopped.” Tenser rose quickly as Mordenkainen struggled with his bedsheets. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m not lying in bed all day,” Mordenkainen grumbled. “I’ve got to inspect…” He couldn’t finish his sentence, as just trying to sit up seemed to drain the last of his strength from him.
“You need to rest, Mord. You haven’t just been asleep. The strain of protecting the citadel was too much on you. You had some kind of …attack of old age. You’re only here with us now because of the healing and curative spells that have been cast on you – just about everything short of a wish spell.”
Mordenkainen felt so tired. He just wanted to go back to sleep, but he struggled to stay focused and ask. “How…long?”
“Two days, it was two days ago. I’ve been here the past twelve hours, most of it sitting here with you. This isn’t the first time you’ve woken up either. You’ve been half-awake, half-lucid, before, and said—“
The silence grew thick in the room after Tenser cut himself off. Mordenkainen had noticed it immediately, but needed to gather fresh strength to speak again.
“What did I say?”
Tenser shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Just some--“
“What…did I say?”
Tenser let out a heavy sigh. “You said…you recognized me and said you were glad to have me here…before the end of all things.”
Mordenkainen closed his eyes. He needed to go back to sleep, even if it was an eternal sleep he would never wake up from. But he still had more to say. He fought for more focus, more strength. “It is right that you should know. Tenser…the end is coming. The past…is catching up with us.”
Tenser felt sure this was not some delusional raving this time. Mordenkainen was struggling to tell him something important. “What, from our past?”
“No…a different one.”
Mordenkainen was sleeping when Tenser left the room.
Outside the private chambers of Mordenkainen was a marble-lined hall, with decorative columns reaching the ceiling 20 feet above the floor. Dancing lights circled through the air around crystal chandeliers. Long burgundy curtains concealed the alcoves in which iron golems stood, waiting to defend their master’s chambers. But the only thing that surprised Tenser was seeing Robilar.
“Robilar!” the old, blue-robed wizard said. The mithril woven through his archmage robes was enchanted to be as blue as the fabric. Though bare-headed in front of Mordenkainen, Tenser now had on his turquoise helmet that gave him immunity from all mental attacks. “You still don’t look a day over 50.”
“That’s good,” Robilar said, “because, between you and me, I am starting to feel 57.”
Both men laughed.
Robilar had a white beard now, but his face bore the wrinkles of a man 20 years younger. Though bedecked in gold-chased adamantine plate armor, it was no doubt enchanted to be no heavier than a suit of clothes, and even if It was heavy, Robilar wore his old belt of giant strength. A sword was sheathed at his side, but he bore no other noticeable weapons.
“How is he?” Robilar asked at last.
The smile faded from Tenser’s lips. “Fading fast. It is good you came when you did. I fear you would have missed saying your good-byes by morning.”
Robilar nodded. “And you?”
“Oh…” Tenser said, waving his hand as if to swat away the kind gesture of asking. “Just the ailments that come with old age. Nothing a dab of healing ointment now and then can’t fix…”
“No, I mean, were you attacked as well?”
Tenser nodded in understanding, but then shook his head. “Ah, no, at least not so far. And we do not know his assailant yet either. Though I am heading to see the current Circle of Eight in Greyhawk next to see what we, together, can ascertain.”
“Good. Then go now,” Robilar said.
Again Tenser nodded, then left to find a location in the citadel from which he could teleport safely.
Robilar approached the doors to Mordenkainen’s room, but he did not go in. Instead, he turned around with his back to the doors, like a sentry. He stood there for a full minute, until the sound of Tenser’s footsteps no longer echoed down the long hall, and then a minute longer, through the long silence that followed.
“One does not free as many imprisoned gods as I have,” Robilar said at last, “without being able to smell them coming. …Show yourself!”
There was no response at first, but then shadows began to coalesce in the center of the hall. The dark blot hovering in the air began to grow and take shape.
Every Earth has a legend of death taking the form of a reaper. Oerth was no different, but here that reaper had a name -- Nerull.
Nerull, god of death, stood there like a tall skeleton draped in a blacker-than-black shroud, wielding a terrible-looking scythe. Nerull seldom personally manifested. When he had, men usually died of fright at the sight of him.
Robilar just drew his sword and pointed the black blade at Nerull. “I knew you would come. I was hoping to find the Sword of Kas to battle you with, but it eluded me. I had to make due with borrowing Blackrazor from its current owners. Well? Think I can take you with it?”
A voice that sounded like shovels in the dirt at a grave answered. “Stand aside, Robilar. It is not your time.”
“Suppose I make it my time…” Robilar said, and he charged forward.
Nerull raised one bony hand in the air and instantly cast a repulsion spell. Robilar, though, braced himself for it and stood his ground. Nerull, being a god, simply doubled the power of the spell. Robilar was now struggling to keep his footing and had to take some steps back to steady himself. Nerull threw in a telekinesis spell and Robilar was thrown completely off-balance. He toppled backwards until his head hit the wall. Worse, as Nerull approached, Robilar found he could not move from where he was.
“Stop…face me, you coward…” Robilar said as he struggled.
Nerull moved past Robilar and the doors to Mordenkainen’s room flew open at his approach.
“No…take me, damn you…”
“When your time comes, it will not be my doing.”
The doors closed behind Nerull as he moved inside. Robilar just laid there, knowing he could do nothing to save Mordenkainen now, as surely as death had spared him yet again.
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